2008 Kansas Football Preview - State of the Union

Good stuff. Do you think Reesing has to take Meier with him to the fair in order to get on the bumper cars?

I thought Larson and Brorsen were the underrated stars on that defense last year. Those dudes may not be the most physically gifted, but they rarely make any mistakes or lose containment, and shed blocks well.

Yo.

Kansas has had quite a few assistant coaches move on to greater things. John Cooper (‘67 to ’72), Terry Donahue (’68 – ‘70), Don James (’56), Wade Phillips (‘75), Dick Tomey (’67-‘70), and Ron Zook (’83) all spnt time in Lawrence (so did Carl “Bull” Reese from ’75 – ’76).

In retrospect, those ’68 – ’70 teams must have been pretty well coached. Pepper rodgers was the head coach, and he had Cooper, Donahue and Tomey as assistants. They went to the Orange Bowl in ’68, but fell to 1 – 9 and 5 – 6 the next couple of years.

Actually, I’m a touch disappointed. The other previews were much funnier. Probably kinda hard to find stuff on Kansas though because we’re Kansas.

Wanted to point out a couple of things:

D-line: Haselhorst left the team a couple of months ago. He was experiencing medical issues (by his own account) and literally could not play football anymore. At all. He is, however, still enrolled and finishing his degree. In his place look to see Jamal Greene (6’4", 301lbs) or Richard Johnson (6’2" 280lbs) or true freshman Darius Parish (6’4" 341 lbs).

Also, Larson may lose his starting position to Max Onyegbule who has really come on strong as of late.

And, Rivera and Mortensen actually trade slaps before every game and at halftime.

Also, Mangino has visibly lost weight (rumor is that he had lap-band surgery last spring); that being said, he’s still fat.

@ dedfischer – I’m still not positive what to think about Brorsen/Larson. As you said, they’re incredibly reliable and won’t lose contain, etc. But they generate almost NO pass rush. Last year they combined for 4 sacks and 4 QBHs. In this pass happy league you have to get more pressure from your DEs than that.

@ Leo – Where did you hear that about Larson/Onyegbule? Not saying it isn’t true, just that I had not heard it…

@hippo — just rumor-mill so far.

Open practice today should shed some insight.

Onyegbule was ahead of Larson at the last open practice. We’ll see how it is this week. But with Mangino, you can never pin down the starters until game 1. I think he likes messing with the fans in that regard.

Hippo, I would give HenryJames’ left nut for Tech to have two DEs, who played the run as well as Larson and Brorsen. Especially, in this league. The QB play is at such a high level in the Big 12, that guy’s get rid of the ball so quick it eliminates the effectiveness of pass rushing DEs. It’s almost more critical for them to be able to bat balls down. I would be curious as to how many of those they had.

This has been my favorite so far. Subtle and nuanced (festival seating and tape measures) with a dash of Harkonnen sci-fi geek smack.

BTW- do you guys still wear those “Our coach is PHAT!” shirts to away games? I will admit they made me chuckle at the game here a few years back.

I’m sure we’ll see plenty of “Our coach is PHAT!” along with “Our coach can eat your coach!” shirts as well. I like the “Fighting Manginos” shirts the best.

A review of Kansas Football 2008 isn’t complete without talk of special teams.

We’ve got to replace our Kicker and Punter.

For kicker, we’ve got a three-way race too close to call with a bunch of kids from kicking factories

For punter, the race is between some kid who was at Bowling Green named Rojas and……Kerry Meier, or WR/backup QB.

Also, expect Mangino to learn a few things from his brief encoutner with Frank Beamer.

KU could line up with Reesing at QB, Meier at WR (our #2 QB), AJ Steward at TE (who was our #3 QB during spring drills), and WR Marcus Hereford (who was a QB at the beginning of his career at KU). All can throw a decent ball.

Expect the trickery to commence!

Going A-11 on us?

We’re still Kansas….so not THAT much trickery.

It really doesn’t matter who Kansas has to replace, because it’s not like they are losing anything. Every player on that team was built up from nothing, so there is no reason not to think the next guy won’t be built in similar fashion. Mangino is just a more prolific Dr. Frankenstein.

BTW, it’s Frahn-ken-steen.

As a KU alum, it’s sure fun to see a competitive football team. There were glimpses under Glen Mason in the 1990s but when he left, it reverted back to the Dark Ages.

The whole “easy schedule” think is overplayed. Kansas did score >40 per game. Even against Big 12 foes. The Orange Bowl was a nice plus.

Whether or not last year’s schedule was easy, this year’s schedule is going to be very difficult. But Kansas fans have no reason to apologize. You won all your games save one, and you won the Orange Bowl.

My Step dad is a Larson from St. Cloud. No shit.

HJ, probably your best work since ‘The Ambassadors’.

Now that expectations in Lawrence have been raised in a sport other than basketball, it will be interesting to see how the fanbase deals with anything else than a perfect season.

Fans with raised expectations are the worst. They should be happy with whatever I,,,uhh I mean Mangino,,,gives them.

“Now that expectations in Lawrence have been raised in a sport other than basketball, it will be interesting to see how the fanbase deals with anything else than a perfect season.”

I don’t think it’ll be any different than how Texas football fans deal with bad basketball… it’s not that important.

@ ded – I agree to the point. As for your question, Larson batted 2 and Brorsen had 4.

As for the pressure, I agree a George Selvie is not all that necessary. But there’s no better way to disrupt a QB than to get pressure on him and that game at Arrowhead is still too fresh in my mind to be content. Daniel had all day back there and it led to him going 40-49.

Might have to get Mangino one of those floating suits like Baron Harkonnen had.

hippo, you’re right. I don’t think there’s a better way to stop a zone read spread offense than with 2 badass DEs, but you’ve got two pretty damn solid ones. What’s more critical against teams like Mizzou and Tech is getting an interior pass rush from smaller, quick DTs. This disrupts the timing of everything we (Tech) and they (Mizzou) try to do.

Bob,

I see your point and it’s a fair connection. But judging by the way KU fans have been aggressively defending last season (The fat man has delivered our seat at the table and we’re not going anywhere!) and how they have similar semi-delusional expectations for this season despite losing key players and facing a tougher schedule, I’m noticing some of that rabid rock chalk fever creeping over to the gridiron.

Mangino has delivered the nectar and they want more now.

Can’t blame them for the excitement, it certainly adds some spice to the otherwise bland cocktail that is the Big 12 North. Getting frothier by the season, no doubt.

Vash… I don’t blame them either. I suppose I’ve defended UT hoops on phog.net in much the same way (although, when you get down to it, Texas hoops has had 20 years of pretty good success… KU football hasn’t).

I also don’t disagree that it will be interesting to see how they react to whatever happens. I just don’t think that, at the end of the day, football success will make them feel better if basketball were to drop to the middle of the B12 (not that I expect that, either).

You all have to bear in mind that we’ve had to spend 11 years listening to the nouveau riche KSU fans talk about how great their team is after almost 100 years of them being the worst program in college football. We’ve had to listen to them say things like “KSU is to football what KU is to basketball” when their football team would beat the dogshit out of ours. Now that the tables have turned, the KU fan base is somewhat reflexively increasing our fervor in response to our in-state brethren. We know where we’re coming from, but we also know that we can be better. Contrast with KSU fans who view their program as equal of Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, USC, etc.

Nouveau riche KSU fan = anyone wearing a Mark Simoneau jersey and crocs.

@ dedfischer – i will definitely concede that. And don’t take this to think I’m not content with Larson/Brorsen, just that I’m hoping to get a little more out of them (as one would expect from any returning starters) or to mix in Laptad/Onyegbule/Wheeler to give them some rest and generate some of that rush.

@ vasher – Well played, sir. Could not have said it better myself.

As usual, well done.

You could have done without the Crawford slam as he was pretty much absolved of all wrong doing. I’ve misplaced the link, but SI.com had a long (and I mean LOONNNGG) article from his high school coach and others involved in the situation detailing the railroad job (read: white girl likes black guy, black guy wants nothing to do with crazy bitch, white girl sends text (paraphrasing): “If you don’t do me, I’ll cry rape”, white girl’s parents get black guy thrown in jail).

Other than that, very funny.

ku had a freakishly low number if injuries, freakishly low number of turnovers, an all time high TO margin, an unworldly low number of penalties and a schedule softer than Mangina’s ass

I see 6-6

if you should happen to lost 3 total starts to injury like last year, 7-5

You’ve lost your mind if you think they come back that far.

‘Hawks will go 8-4 this year. Everyone is saying our schedule got harder…didn’t Texas, Tech and OU’s schedule get harder also? Texas and Tech both have to come to Lawrence and the ‘Hawks are 18-2 in the last 3 years. Believe me when I say we have Texas circled. I was at the 2004 game and the “phantom” pass interference call. The F***ing play was right in front of me! Anyway, I’m just glad the season is just around the corner.

One of those 2 was to us. Just saying y’all aint that great. Do it again this year and everybody will be slobbering all over you again.

I thought KU did a great job of coming back from that PI call to force Texas into a 4th and 18.

“Intellectual know-how taken from. . .Oklahoma.”

Does not compute.

KU had a remarkably low number of injuries last year, but only because they have one of the best conditioning coaches in the business, college or pro. They may do as well, injury wise, as last year. They won’t be playing a schedule “as soft as Mangino’s ass” (creepy shiver).

It’s nice that you took the time to write this post; it’s inspiring to hear another’s opinion. I respect your work on this site, and I’ll come back for more information.